Holland, Melvin Arnold
Air Force Technician sergeant
Melvin Arnold Holland, age 32, from Woodland, Washington, Cowlitz county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Monday, March 11, 1968
Death details: On March 11, 1968, North Vietnamese soldiers conducted a sapper attack against a U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Navigation system, designated Lima Site 85 in Houaphan Province, Laos, also referred to as Phou Pha Thi. The enemy attacked very early in the morning, using grenades and mortars, and eventually killing eleven U.S. Air Force personnel. Nine Americans were later rescued from the site, one who was wounded and then later died of his injuries before he reached the evacuation base. Technical Sergeant Melvin Arnold Holland, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Washington, served with Detachment 1, 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron. He was one of the Air Force technicians killed during the attack on the Lima Site 85 TACAN site on Pha Thi Mountain, and his body was not recovered. Today, Technical Sergeant Holland is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
